"Joanne's workshop is interesting and thought provoking. She presents a compelling case which anyone in the sales business needs to hear. She has made me and others in my company start to think and act differently in regard to this important buying group."

"Reaching
the Real World of Women Consumers is an entertaining and highly
informative seminar. I'd recommend it strongly for men and
women marketing personnel alike. The research is surprising,
and will dispel many of the myths and assumptions surrounding
the women's market."

"Bruce Power recognizes that women are enormously influential public opinion stakeholders. In order to be the most effective in our job of communicating with the public, we needed to understand women better. For us, that meant The Thomas Yaccato Group. Using the company's innovative Gender Intelligence Lab, we gained unprecedented access to the hearts and minds of women thought and opinion leaders. As a result of this work, we now have powerful insights and strategies that help us communicate sensitive issues in a way that women will hear."

"Joanne
Thomas Yaccato performed superbly, touring seven cities as
part of the CENTURY 21 Canada Fall Power Conference Tour.
Her professional presentation and light hearted approach to
dealing with personal financial management left our audience
feeling enthused about taking control of their financial investment
 themselves. Joanne effectively showed that todays
real estate professionals cannot afford to overlook taking
care of their financial future."

“I had the privilege of working with Joanne during our 2006 national road show for our retail clients. Travelling across the country with her, I witnessed her down to earth, engaging and professional speaking style appeal to the very wide demographic that made up our audiences. Her ability to seamlessly integrate her research and personal experiences created a meaningful connection to the audience. Our clients' really enjoyed her!”

"The response to Joanne’s session was exceptional as evidenced by her securing the top ranking in our conference speaker survey. She really connected with the group and they responded enthusiastically not only to her irreverent delivery style, but to the insights shared about women consumers and all that this means to the credit union movement."

"Joanne
Thomas Yaccato offers a unique perspective into the automotive
industry and its relationship with women car buyers. Her focus
groups provided us with thoughtful insight into this important
consumer and her innovative and analytic ability helped us
rethink and reframe our point of sale materials away from
"finance and car-speak" into a language women want
to hear."

"The Thomas Yaccato Group clearly understands the importance of incorporating gender in every aspect of customer-facing marketing. In today's economic climate, it is this type of differentiation that will drive revenue and client satisfaction. Joanne Thomas Yaccato is a superb speaker and truly engages her audience. Her ability to convey the key messages with both humor and logic helped us to exceed our event expectations and deliver value to our clients and partners."

"Joanne doesn’t spend a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror – she’s a lady that’s focuses forward. Listen to the advice she gives: her message is critical in helping leaders understand this emerging and dynamic market."

"The Thomas Yaccato Group has been a valuable resource for IKEA Canada as we have been realigning our marketing strategy in Canada. Their extensive understanding of how to market to women, who are responsible for 80 per cent of household purchasing decisions and represent an important core customer for IKEA, has been invaluable to our organization."

"In
today's dynamic workplace, identifying new ways to communicate
effectively with colleagues and work efficiently as a team
is an ongoing responsibility and challenge. Through her "Women
and Men as Effective Teams" course, Joanne Thomas Yaccato
uses both a business-like and light-hearted approach to highlight
the complexities of communication between men and women and
how this impacts our day-to-day working relationships. By
the end of Joannes session, participants come away with
a greater appreciation and understanding of differences in
style. Most importantly, she focuses on how we can use our
individual qualities to our advantage to motivate each other
and work together to achieve both personal and corporate success."

"Investors
Group clients had the pleasure of hearing Joanne speak on
the very unique issues faced by members of the Sandwich Generation.
Drawing on her personal experiences, Joanne walked us through
the process of raising sensitive issues such as wills, estate
planning, long term care decisions, Powers of Attorney and
funeral arrangements with parents who are ill-prepared for
their future and reluctant to discuss details with their children.
At times the serious subject matter yielded gales of laughter
as Joanne brought the topic to life with her anecdotes and
wry humour. The response was overwhelmingly positive and the
audience kept Joanne talking late into the evening with their
questions and their compelling personal stories. I have heard
Joanne speak on many different occasions and on different
topics, but for me, this was, by far, her most enlightening
and moving presentation."

"Joanne brilliantly elevates our heads out the sand to really see and understand what is happening around us in the world of gender differences. Her indispensable and arresting insights in her conference keynote, often layered with humour and wit will definitely leave you with a dose of reality of our dynamic marketplace today. Her practical approach with real life experiences further lend support to better position ourselves as an organization to navigate the world of the most powerful consumer of them all...women!"

"This
is What I Really Mean " keynote speech was extremely
successful and very timely. We have never before had women
physicians attend the Ontario Medical Association's Annual
Meeting in such numbers. The topic was relevant, the content
was educational, and Joanne Thomas Yaccato's presentation
style was extremely entertaining. We will do this again and
you can rest assured that we will give Joanne even more time
to work her magic at the next Annual Meeting."

"Joanne
is a dynamic speaker who, through her research and humourous
style, helped us understand the huge economic power of the
women's market. She was very successful in sensitizing our
group to gender issues."

“The workshop was very helpful for farmers; both in their business and personal lives. In an industry where bad news is more common than good news, it was great to see a group of farmers laughing and having fun together. They expressed their enjoyment of the day and will be making changes to better serve women. They expect improvements in their businesses that came as a result of the workshop with Joanne. ”

“As a marketer, I’m expected to understand how our guests think and feel about our products and services. Joanne’s seminar made me realize that at least 50% of the population doesn’t necessarily react and respond to our offers and promotions in the same way I do. After the seminar our Marketing leadership team is now looking at our site level experience through a much different lens.”

"Joanne's speaking style is lively and entertaining, and the content of her presentation is fresh, informative and edgy. Her use of multi-media to point out current trends in marketing holds the attention of her audiences and ensures delivery of very good information.

She has a wicked sense of humor and was a pleasure to deal with in every way. I would recommend Joanne to any event organizer."
Brian A. Butters, Executive Director
Professional Golfers' Association of B.C.

"Joanne Thomas Yaccato has done us all a big favour. She has worked to show us
the "real" world. By helping to open our eyes to the world we live in, she opens the
doors of opportunity. It is often difficult for old institutions first to recognize and then to
react to our changed and changing demands as a society. Joanne helps us see and
then navigate the new world with sound insights and an eye that sees our follies and
then focuses on a better way to meet the demands of the future."

"The Thomas Yaccato Group translates what women are looking for from the public and private sector into powerful and effective strategies that go considerable distance in helping organizations meet the needs of this critically important constituency."

"As part of our market research program, the Quebec Furniture Manufacturers' Association hired Joanne to conduct a Gender Intelligence Lab™ on the home furnishings industry to get a better sense of what women need when it comes to their home and the furniture they choose to put in it-an unprecedented step in our industry. Although we instinctively knew that women played a huge role in our industry, we had no idea how powerful the findings would be.

The new insights uncovered through TYG's Gender Intelligence Lab™ touched on all stages of the furniture buying process: from research to the actual shopping experience, through to the moment furniture arrives in the home. These findings have literally transformed the way our manufacturers view and relate to this powerful constituency.

Joanne is passionate, engaging and really knows how to captivate her audience - even an audience whose first language isn't English! She presented her findings to our members and conducted workshops with them on several occasions and was able to effectively transfer all of the new research insights to them. More importantly, our members were able to walk away with newfound inspiration and tools that they could immediately apply to their product design, communications tools and entire organization. They now know that by making it women-friendly they make it everybody-friendly!"

"While
there is no doubt that the course has excellent content and
can really help sales people understand how small business
people want to be treated, the real value of the program lies
in the facilitators. The Thomas Yaccato Group offers the best
small business experts who are entrepreneurs themselves. The
impact of hearing the message not from the Bank but from someone
who speaks from experience adds a credibility factor that
cannot be replicated in-house."

"We use Joanne as a keynote speaker right across the
country. No matter what part of Canada we send her to, Joanne
has consistently drawn huge numbers of qualified prospects
to our events, which our account managers have effectively
turned into clients. The audience falls in love with her wit
and her wisdom, laughing while they learn. She is one of the
best marketing investments the bank has made."

"Royal
Bank used The Thomas Yaccato Groups Reaching the Real
World of Women Entrepreneurs as an integral part of our bank-wide
core training program and we have reaped incredible benefits
as a result. One year after its implementation, Royal Bank
saw the highest-ever increase in satisfaction levels of women
entrepreneurs with their account managers, a whopping 30%
increase in one year. Even more impressive was the 10% market
share increase within the same year. Royal Bank continues
to win international awards for our work in the womens
market - Reaching the Real World of Women Entrepreneurs is
one of the major reasons. Joanne is truly a leader in her
field and an inspiration to many. Her seminars for Royal Bank
have provided great insight for our staff and she continues
to spark the imaginations in all of us."

"Scotiabank
hired Joannes company who brought unparalleled experience
in the entrepreneurial market and a unique ability to communicate
a very powerful message to our employees. Joanne and her staff
developed a course specifically for Scotiabank called Reaching
the Entrepreneur, which we rolled out to over 1000 bank managers
across the country. It has literally taken the bank by storm.
Thanks to her course, we are witnessing incredible enthusiasm
and excitement by our bankers around the entrepreneurial market
that we have not seen previously. Happily, our customer satisfaction
numbers reflect this."

"The understanding we gained from The 80% Minority: Reaching the Real World of Women Consumers, followed by direct advice from Joanne, led us to tap into the minds of our female customers. It made us smarter and better at what we do. It was an exhilarating experience for our women customers who participated from the planning stage through the opening of two specifically 'designed by women' homes. Imagine how even more revealing Joanne's advice was when we won a national award for one of the models. Joanne inspired us to do what we should have always been doing!"

"Many
managers agree that tapping into the women's market is key
to growing their business. It's figuring out how to do this
that causes a problem. Joanne's training seminars have provided
our clients and us with valuable information on how to avoid
alienating this key market with our advertising message, and,
more importantly, given us some great ideas on how to reach
women effectively."